Thursday, 22 January 1998, 4:00 pm
Mathematics Bldg., lecture hall 2
Prof. Carolyn Gordon (Dartmouth)
"When you can't hear the shape of a manifold"
Abstract:
When a bounded plane domain is viewed as a drumhead, the eigenvalue
spectrum of the Laplacian on the domain determines the characteristic
frequencies of vibrations of the drum. Mark Kac's question "Can one
hear the shape of a drum?" asks whether two domains with the same
eigenvalue spectrum must be congruent. We consider methods of constructing
isospectral domains and, more generally, isospectral Riemannian manifolds.
We also listen to a computer simulation, produced by Dennis De Turck,
of exotic-shaped sound-alike drums.
Please come for Coffee, cookies, and Company
at 3:45 pm in room 12 of the mathematics building.
Please come
to the "after colloquium coffee chat" in Beit-Belgia.
